A Swedish comedian is organizing a male-free music festival after reports of rape and sexual assault at another, major Swedish music festival caused that event to be canceled for 2018.
Emma Knyckare, a comedian and radio host, floated the idea of a music festival that doesn’t admit men on Twitter last Sunday. Her suggestion came one day after organizers of Sweden’s annual Bravalla Festival announced they were pulling the plug on next year’s festival after one case of rape and 11 cases of sexual assault were reported at this year’s event, which ran last Wednesday through Saturday in the town of Norrköping.
“What do you think about putting together a really cool festival where only non-men are welcome, that we’ll run until ALL men have learned how to behave themselves?” Knyckare tweeted, as translated by Swedish outlet The Local.
After the post garnered support, she posted on Instagram on Monday that she’s now working to make such a festival a reality in 2018.
“What do you think about putting together a really cool festival where only non-men are welcome, that we’ll run until ALL men have learned how to behave themselves?”
- Emma Knyckare
“Sweden’s first man-free rock festival will see the light next summer,” she said. “In the coming days I’ll bring together a solid group ... to form the festival organizers, then you’ll hear from everyone again when it’s time to move forward.”
If Knyckare’s plan comes to fruition, the festival will allow women to attend a music festival without concern over male attendees instigating sexual violence ― which they have good reason to fear. This was the second year of multiple reports of rape and sexual assault at the Bravalla Festival.
″[S]ome men — because we are talking about men — apparently can’t behave,” the festival’s organizers, FKP Scorpio, said in a press release.
If recent reactions to other female-only spaces provide any indication, blocking men from the festival is likely to infuriate some of them. When a movie theater in Austin, Texas, announced in May it would have women-only screenings of “Wonder Woman,” angry males on the internet cried misandry ― prejudice against men.
The theater, the Alamo Ritz, took the criticism in stride.
“That providing an experience where women truly reign supreme has incurred the wrath of trolls only serves to deepen our belief that we’re doing something right,” the theater said in a statement to HuffPost.
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